These Big US Defense Contractors registered a Total Pretax Earnings increase of a modest 2% in 2011 and 4% in 2010, both a substantial deceleration from earlier years.
This earnings growth downturn by these Big US Defense Contractors is really good news for US taxpayers. Let's hope it continues. It is critical for the long-term US deficit to remove as much of the excess profits out of this industry as possible.
These windfall profits have been generated by these Big US Defense Contractors for the entire 2000s decade, wreaking absolute havoc on the US economy.
When you focus on the last 7 years (2001 through 2008) of the Bush/Cheney Presidency, the Total Core Pretax Income of these Big US Defense Contractors more than tripled.
Many in the US Congress, primarily Republicans but also many Democrats, have been major facilitators of these excess profits of the Big US Defense Contractors. This is one of the many reasons the favorable approval rating of the US Congress is now so low, and is headed much lower.
In deriving Pretax Income, I start with Pretax Income under Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), and then exclude several clearly unusual very large items relative to Pretax Income, such as Asset Impairments.
Below here is the Pretax Income (PTI) of these 15 Big US Defense Contractor Corps for each of the most recent three years.
| PTI | PTI | ||||
| % | % | ||||
| Change | Change | ||||
| PTI | PTI | PTI | 2011 | 2010 | |
| 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | vs | vs | |
| mils $s | mils $s | mils $s | 2010 | 2009 | |
| US Defense Contractors | |||||
| General Dynamics | 3,718 | 3,790 | 3,513 | -2% | 8% |
| LockheedMartin | 3,631 | 3,778 | 4,182 | -4% | -10% |
| Northrop Grumman | 3,083 | 2,595 | 2,070 | 19% | 25% |
| Raytheon | 2,690 | 2,827 | 2,930 | -5% | -4% |
| Precision Castparts | 1,510 | 1,412 | 1,575 | 7% | -10% |
| L-3 Communications | 1,328 | 1,484 | 1,386 | -11% | 7% |
| Goodrich | 1,165 | 805 | 784 | 45% | 3% |
| CSC | 968 | 1,022 | 950 | -5% | 8% |
| Harris Corp | 881 | 840 | 741 | 5% | 13% |
| Rockwell Collins | 855 | 796 | 858 | 7% | -7% |
| SAIC | 747 | 872 | 768 | -14% | 14% |
| KBR | 572 | 586 | 532 | -2% | 10% |
| Textron | 560 | 177 | (119) | 216% | 249% |
| Exelis | 537 | 696 | 700 | -23% | -1% |
| Alliant Techsystems | 439 | 473 | 407 | -7% | 16% |
| Total all 15 | 22,684 | 22,153 | 21,277 | 2% | 4% |
